Tituba of Salem Village (13 page)

Abigail would shrug and say, “Sometimes she has fits, Tituba. You know that. We don’t do anything—”

Betsey cried easily. Any sudden movement, any loud sound affected her. Even the unexpected sight of her own shadow on the wall would make her jump and say, “What’s that?”

Another time, Tituba had been upstairs. When she came down, the keeping room seemed full of girls. Anne Putnam, Jr., Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, Betsey Parris, and Elizabeth Hubbard were sitting at the trestle table. Mary Walcott was seated on a settle near the fire.

Betsey’s eyes were open, but she was staring straight ahead of her, her gaze fixed and unwinking. Mercy Lewis was bending over her saying, “Did the Reverend George Burroughs kill you?”

Betsey spoke in a low, guttural voice. Her breathing was labored and slow. “Yes, he killed his first two wives, and he killed me.” She paused and added, “There’s more to tell—”

Mercy said, “What did you say?”

Tituba took hold of Betsey’s wrist and pressed gently, firmly, “Betsey,” she said, “Betsey, it’s time to wake up.”

The child shuddered, blinked her eyes and moaned, “Oh, Titibee—Titibee—”

Tituba scowled at the girls. They looked ashamed and afraid, heads hung down. Only Abigail looked back at her.

“I’ve told you again and again not to do this. You’ll harm the child—” There was a bright, shiny sixpence in the bowl of water.

“We only did it for sport,” Mercy Lewis said.

She looked more frightened than the others. After all, she was a bound girl. Tituba thought, I will get her in trouble if I tell on her. She knows this. Anne Putnam is a deacon’s daughter and Mary Walcott is the Sibleys’ niece—they’re big landowners, and they contribute heavily to the church, so no one will do anything to Mary Walcott. But Mercy Lewis? She was lively, rosy-cheeked. She had bright yellow hair that was always tumbling down from under her cap. The people would say she was dabbling in the black arts, that she was trying to talk to the dead. They’d put her in the stocks, have her whipped at the whipping post—they might hang her.

Tituba said, “I told you—” She frowned. While her attention was centered on Betsey, one of them had taken the six-pence out of the bowl of water. They were all looking at her with blank faces. It would be impossible to say who had removed the coin—their hands were folded in their laps. But she knew one of them must have a wet hand. And as though they’d read her thoughts, they leaned over the table and began playing in the water, dabbling their fingers in it. Now they all had wet hands; they dried them on their long skirts, smiling faintly.

Mercy Lewis reached inside the bodice of her long gown. She had a package tucked inside. She put it down on the table and unwrapped it. Tituba watched her, wondering what it was that was so precious that she carried it tucked inside her bodice.

It was a pack of playing cards. Mercy spread them out on the trestle table. “They’re playing cards. I got them from Pim, the redheaded boy at Deacon Ingersoll’s.”

Anne Putnam frowned. “We can’t have those here. It’s sinful.”

“No more sinful than your talk of ghosts and wanting to talk to the dead,” Abigail said. “I’ve never seen playing cards before. Let me hold them, Mercy. They’re pretty, aren’t they? There are so many of them.”

Betsey said, “I don’t think we should’ have playing cards here in the ministry house. There’s so much talk against Father in the Village—if it were known—”

“What kind of talk is there against him?” Abigail kept picking the cards up and looking at them. Tituba knew that she only asked this question to distract Betsey’s attention.

“The people say we have no right to this house. They say unkind things about us.” Betsey put her hand on Abigail’s arm and said, “I don’t think we should have these cards here.”

Abigail said, “They’re just heavy paper and they have pictures on them. Pictures of people. Kings and queens. They’re such pretty colors.” She spread them out even farther. “I wish I had these for my own. Think of all the games I could play with them. I could match the pictures and—”

Tituba picked up some of the cards. It was a very pretty deck, very skillfully painted. The edges were gilded. She thought, Why this is a fortune-telling deck—a tarot deck. It’s not for games and gambling. She used to tell Mistress Endicott’s fortune with cards like these.

“Where’d a bound boy get cards like these?” she asked.

“A gentleman gave them to him,” Mercy said. She looked rather pleased to be the center of attention. “A very great lord gave them to him before he left London. ‘Pim,’ he said, ‘these are my favorite cards. I’m giving them to you as a farewell present.’”

“And Pim gave them to you?”

Mercy flushed. “Well—no—he loaned them to me. He said—well, he said, maybe I could find someone to teach me how to tell fortunes. Then I could tell his fortune.”

There was a silence in the room, a strange perturbed silence. They all looked at Tituba.

Abigail said, “Is that what these cards are for?” She looked at Tituba, her mouth slightly open. “Tituba, you can tell fortunes. You told me you could. Tell my fortune, please, Tituba. Here.” She pushed the cards toward Tituba.

Tituba hesitated. All of her instincts told her not to do this. But what harm can it do? she thought. She sat down at the table, picked up part of the deck, and shuffled the cards so expertly they must have known she had done this many times before. It was like being in Barbados, sitting across the table from Mistress Endicott. Except that this table was pine and light in color, and the table they’d used in Barbados was polished mahogany and it had gleamed in the candlelight.

“Pick a card,” she said to Abigail. “Now pick another card.” She began lining the cards up on the table.

Someone knocked at the outside door. With a deft movement Tituba swept the cards together, handed them to Mercy Lewis. She did not wait to see where Mercy put the cards. She walked slowly to the door, opened it only a crack.

Mary Warren, the bound girl at the Proctors’, stood at the door. She had a big haunch of meat in her arms, and Tituba thought, More fodder for the minister. Mary Warren had dark, slightly protruding eyes, and she kept trying to see into the room.

“My master, John Proctor, sent meat for the minister. Please to see that it’s put in the rate book.” She said this quickly as though she had memorized it, even imitating the intonation of her master’s voice. But she couldn’t copy the texture of his voice. Tituba remembered his voice as being pleasant to the ear. This girl’s voice was coarse and unpleasant.

I’ll have to let her in, Tituba thought. She’s come all the way from the Proctors’ farm. She looks frozen, nose red and pinched, cheeks roughened and reddened from the cold, teeth chattering. Another of these bound girls. But this one was older than the others. She was closer to twenty. John Proctor was said to be a hard taskmaster despite his pleasant-sounding voice. He had a reputation for thrashing the girls who worked there. He wanted them to spin and weave and fetch and carry, without respite. Surely before the girl turned around and went back, surely she should be allowed to warm herself by the fire.

“Come inside,” Tituba said.

The girl looked surprised when she saw Mercy Lewis and Anne Putnam, Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Walcott sitting at the table with Abigail and Betsey. She greeted them, but she kept staring at them, and finally she said, “What are you doing?”

They all smiled at once—false, forced smiles. Tituba thought anyone could tell their smiles weren’t genuine. They were making themselves smile, and they were half-frightened.

Abigail, the quick-witted, quick-speeched one, said, “We were telling stories.”

“Oh.” Mary Warren pulled off her mittens, hung her cloak on a hook by the door. “I—could I listen?”

“You’re too late. We just finished and they’re getting ready to go home.” Abigail looked hard at Mercy Lewis. Mercy stood up, and so did the others. As Mercy walked toward the door, a card dropped on the floor, and then another, and then another. She was leaving a little trail of fortune-telling cards behind her as she walked.

Tituba watched in dismay. They all did.

Mary Warren pointed. “What are those? What has she got there?” And then squealing, “Look what’s coming out of her!”

“A friend—” Mercy stammered. “I had to keep them for a friend. The boy at the—”

Abigail interrupted. “A bound boy found them, and his master saw them, and he had to pretend he didn’t have them, that he’d burned them up. Mercy’s keeping them for him.”

“What are they?”

“Pictures,” Abigail said. “Pictures of kings and of queens and court jesters and farmers and soldiers.” She started picking up the cards. “And a man that was hanged—just pictures. Very pretty pictures. Like little paintings.”

Mary Warren helped pick up the cards. She placed them on the table. “Can I keep one? This pretty one of a king? I’d put it somewhere safe and take it out and look at it sometimes. I’d never tell I got it in the minister’s house.”

Abigail gathered all the cards together. “No,” she said. “She’s keeping them for a bound boy. She can’t give any away.”

Abigail put them in a neat pile and then patted the top card. Without thinking, Tituba sorted them out, counted them, handed them to Mercy.

“They’re all there.”

“How do you know?” Mary Warren asked. “How do you know how many there should be?”

Abigail said quickly, “We counted them when Mercy showed them to us.”

“Who counted them?”

“Tituba.”

“Can you count up that high?” Mary Warren eyed the stack of cards. “How’d you learn to count?”

“In Barbados. A long time ago.” John had taught her to count, slowly, laboriously. She practiced and practiced. When he got a big catch, she counted fish; she counted eggs in the market; she counted Mistress Endicott’s shoes and her petticoats—she had owned twenty-five petticoats. John had taught her to make figures, too.

The cards were still on the table. Mercy had her hand lifted to pick them up when Betsey said, “Tituba, tell Mercy not to bring those fortune-telling cards here again.”

“Fortune-telling cards!” Mary Warren said, aghast.

Abigail reached across the table and slapped Betsey’s face, slapped her so hard that the blow left a red mark on the soft white skin. Betsey screamed and started to cry.

“You fool, you tattletale. You’ve spoiled everything. You always do—”

Mercy Lewis said, “Hit her again, Abigail. Hit her again.”

Mary Walcott said, “Good for you, Abigail.”

Abigail lifted her hand towards Betsey, and Tituba pulled her away. She shook Abigail, saying, “Don’t do that again.”

Mary Warren put her hands on her hips and laughed and laughed and laughed. The raucous sound she made seemed to echo in the room, to run along under the beams, to linger and reverberate through the bundles of dried herbs hanging from the soot-darkened rafters.

“It’s like a show,” she said. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. She”—pointing at Mercy Lewis—“gets up to go home and cards fall out of her clothes, just like she was sowing seed. But it’s cards instead. This one”—pointing at Abigail Williams—“says they’re pictures, pretty little pictures of kings and queens. Like paintings.”

She stopped laughing, and there was a gloating sound in her voice. “They’re cards to tell fortunes with. And they’re right here in the minister’s house. Wait till I tell Master. Wait till Master Proctor hears that Deacon Putnam’s daughter was here, and the minister’s daughter and the minister’s niece were here.”

She started laughing again. “Ha, ha, ha! They’ll switch you, and they’ll put you in the stocks, and the bound boys will throw mud and filth on you. Ha, ha, ha!”

Betsey cried out in fear. Abigail pinched her on the arm, twisting the soft flesh between her fingers.

Tituba pinched Abigail’s arm the same way, only her fingers were stronger than Abigail’s and so it was a much more painful pinch. Abigail shrieked, “I hate you,” and started to cry, too.

Mary Warren said, “Ooo-hh, I can’t wait to get home. Ooo-hh. I can’t wait.” She hurried towards the door, one work-worn hand reaching out to open it, and she began to laugh again.

Abigail took a deep breath, choked back her sobs, and followed Mary to the door. She said, “Wouldn’t you like to have your fortune told?”

Mary Warren didn’t bother to turn around. She shook her head, put her cloak around her shoulders.

Abigail moved closer. “Wouldn’t you like to know who you’re going to marry? And if you’re going to have a farm or live in a fine house in Boston? Wouldn’t you like to know if you’ll have servants so you can box their ears and beat them with brooms? Wouldn’t you like to find out?”

“Find out how?”

“It’s all in the cards. Tituba can tell you. She can read the cards.”

“Has she read yours?’

“No.”

“How do you know she can do it?”

“Ask her.”

“Can you?” Mary said, the cloak still half around her but the work-worn hands no longer clutching at it in haste.

Tituba thought, If I tell her fortune then she won’t tell about these cards being in the master’s house. But this is not good. These girls keep adding to the things that go on here that can’t be talked about. This will cause trouble for all of us.

Abigail said, “She learned from her old mistress in Barbados. Come, Tituba, sit here at the table and tell Mary Warren what’s in the cards for her. Give me the cards, Mercy.”

Mercy said, “I’ve got to go.”

“If you don’t give me those cards, I’ll tell on you. I’ll tell what you keep asking Betsey.”

Mercy laid the cards down on the table. They all sat down. Tituba shuffled the cards. They slipped softly against each other. She spread the pack face up on the table, placing the cards in rows.

“Now,” she said to Mary Warren. “Look at the cards, think about the cards. No one must speak.”

Tituba kept them waiting so long that when she finally spoke, breaking the silence, she heard them exhale and knew they had been sitting there, tense, hardly daring to breathe. She said that Mary Warren was going to marry a rich Boston merchant, that she would live in a fine big house and have many servants.